For doubles the next day, we bowled the third squad at 11:40am on lanes 7-8. The heads were dry, but there was some serious hang on the right lane. I tried my polished Second Dimension, but it didn''t feel right in my hands which made for inconsistent releases, and I didn''t have any hold room left with it, so I stuck with the Gravity Shift. I struck on all but about three shots on the left lane in the first two games, but never found the pocket on the right lane. I either went 2-4-5 or through the face, there was no in-between. Finally found the pocket in the third game, but had to play such a weak angle I couldn''t take out the corners. 193-191-194. Ouch. My partner didn''t fare too well either and we ended up shooting almost the same exact series. I just never felt comfortable on this pair of lanes, and felt like I was having to walk too fine of a line to strike. This tells me I was probably playing the lanes wrong (and I would find out in the Singles set that I was right!).
For singles, we moved to 5 and 6 where my teammates had been bowling in doubles, and they all hooked it much more than me and played much deeper than me. I again stayed with the Gravity Shift and tried to play where I was on the last pair (assuming I couldn''t get on top of their friction inside), but I couldn''t quite get the ball to face up. After an errant shot through the face for an open in the 9th to kill the double I had before it, I moved three and two left in the 10th to find more of the friction from the previous bowlers, and I pured all three of them to salvage 186. I stayed there the entire next game, and had the front 6 before getting soft with one and leaving the 3-6, and I got firm with one in the 10th for a 2 pin and a nice 267!
I inched my way left the next game and had a pretty good look, but left a weak-as-hell 5-7 split in the middle of the game when the ball didn''t react thanks to early roll, but also something stood the 5 back up. I moved left three boards to shoot the spare, and while I didn''t make the spare, I found a good line back into the pocket, so I finished with a 214. If I had been more aggressive with my moves inside to find head oil to get my ball down the lane, I could have shot better, but also I was afraid of moving too far and having the ball sail wide and washing out, which I did a couple times earlier in the tournament.
So in summary, they played very tight on the fresh for me, but really opened up on the burn, and chasing the head oil left fast enough was the key for me. Oh, and my embarrassingly bad 129 game meant I came out about $300 behind what I paid overall in brackets, and also cost our team several bucks when we get our checks later this year I''m certain. So, yeah, try not to royally screw up like me.
On edit -- I ended the day playing 18 at the arrows to about 11-12 at the breakpoint. If I hit the 10 board, it might give me a swisher strike, it might give me a corner pin. If I hit 12 with soft speed or hit left of it, I went through the face.
Edited on 3/16/2010 1:30 PM
